Tag Archives: letting go

“So typical!” she thought after having gotten the message about his running late:

“Traffic. B there in 5. Smiley face.”

The part about the smiley face was written out. In the very moment of reading his message, she was not tickled by his charm at all. The joke felt stale and smart-Alec-y, and it was probably aimed at her expense:

Well! He remembered that but not that I despise tardiness. “So disrespectful!” she muttered to herself.

She’d already parked the car and taken the stairs. A lanky man going the opposite way in the staircase overheard her. Behind his bifocals, he blinked rapidly and hugged the wall a little more. A tourist! She, for a brief moment, considered covering it up: by pretending to be on her cell phone or improvising a tune to which the overheard words could belong. But she was too annoyed. She clammed up until alone again, on the next flight of stairs.

What irritated her the most, it seemed, was that after all these years, he hadn’t changed at all. She had. She had had to! He’d altered the course of their lives with a single request to end to their marriage four years ago. She moved herself across the country, as if her shame would lessen with no mutual witnesses around. She’d gotten tired to wrench her guts out in front of friends. Their sympathy was too short of a consolation anyway, with nothing on the other side of it — but an even more agitated loneliness.

In a new city, she could blame all the hardships on her relocation. That way the divorce would come secondary; and on the list of common fears — moving, death, break-ups, public speaking — some of hers would be at least on the same plank. Divorce or departure. Departure or divorce. They became interchangeable causes for every new obstacle for a while. But eventually, each claimed its own time of day. Departure took the daylight, while nights were consumed by the consequences of the divorce. She started going to bed earlier.

When things weren’t well, she’d text-message the ex. It was a habit of the fingers — not of the heart. She took him bouncing between her little devastations and the recently increasing occurrences of her gratitude. No matter her original intention though, they always ended up bickering. Recycling became their long-distance pattern. But it seemed to her — and she knew she wasn’t alone in this — they both found comfort in that repetition, how ever painful the results.

“Fuck that, D! What do YOU want?” her stepbrother Tommy, with whom she’d grown close through all of this, would say. The man never slept; and when she called in the midst of her own insomnia, she’d often catch him painting at sunrise in New York, never having gone to bed at all.

Tommy was adamant that no good would come from her constant contact with the ex. “All you’re doing is delaying the pain, man. He won’t change. It’s all about you!”

But that was exactly was she feared. It was easier to fish for an apology — or at least a recognition — in her interactions with the ex: some sort of an acknowledgement of all that former goodness of hers that he had taken for granted, by ending it. It was as if she’d wanted him to love and lose again (someone else, of course, because even she wasn’t dumb enough to go in for seconds), just so he could learn to miss her. It was the only route to getting even that she had known.

The ex and she continued fighting. For weeks afterward, she’d wait for an apology. There would be substantial silence (in which she began to see glimpses of a lighter life, a better self). After a timeout though, his messages would come in flurries, a few days in a row: Some woman wore her perfume on the subway. He’d found an old photo in his college notebook. A mutual friend had asked about her. He missed her legs, her hair… By what right?!

In the beginning, she did respond reflexively, as if flattered by the contact. But when his tone turned whiny — he “missed her”, “wanted her” — she got irritated fast: Who’s fault was that, exactly?! And when he began insinuating at his lust, she would get struck with guilt toward his new woman. The pattern grew old, like the baby blanket from her own childhood which she’d been saving for her firstborn. The firstborn took its time happening while the blanket became a reminder of yet another one of her inadequacies. She began to feel hard of forgiveness. There was no way around it: He’d made a mistake; and she, still picking up the pieces on the receiving end, failed to let go.

“I mean: Do you even want him back?” Tommy sounded flabbergasted. He seemed so different from her! Stronger.

But Tommy was different: He belonged to a separate genetic line of bold spirits: artists, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, marine biologists, heros. At family gatherings, they all came in with colorful stories about the world in which neither habit nor fear seemingly played any role. Her people were hospital administrators and medical assistants, for as long as she remembered. Being concerned with records of pain, causes and possible treatments was their daily bread.

When she first arrived, the older woman took off her shoes before stepping over the threshold. Unusually considerate, light in her step, she made her daughter nervous.

There had been superstitions, back in her mother’s country, about thresholds, doorways, windows. Table tops and chairs. And they were treated like traditions by the women in her family, as non-negotiable as laws of gravity and just as final. To never kiss over a threshold. To never sit upon a tabletop. To never let an unmarried woman be positioned at a corner seat, while dining. And with the slew of superstitions came antidotes, just as important to take notice of; so that when things did NOT work out — the victim could be still the one to blame: You shoulda knocked three times on wood, spit over the left shoulder, and hidden a fig hand in your pocket. These things would grow on one unconsciousness like barnacles of paranoid behavior. And in a nation of world-renowned courage, it puzzled her to see so many doubtful people.

And was her mother brave at all, to just pack-up like that and leave? To move herself with a child to the furthest removed continent, after the death of her husband? His — was a death by drinking. She didn’t want to die — by mourning.

And now, both women — tired but not tired enough to not be cautious of each other — seemed to be waiting for something. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, albeit both of them standing barefoot in the empty kitchen. In this new country, where everyone was in love with fun and smiley faces, they each would arrive to their shared home and try to force a lightness to descend. It would be mostly out of habit, and not desire. Her mother functioned better in these new rules: “Have fun!” “God bless!” “I love you!” She had no difficulty throwing these around, without taking any time to match their implications to the worth of the recipient.

The younger woman now waited by the sink full of dishes. After enough silence, while stealing glances at her mother, who floated from one room to another like a trapped moth, the hostess began to rummage through the dirty dishes.

Had mother always colored her hair with that unnatural shade of black, when last she’d seen her, in New York? The snow white roots came in aggressively, all over mother’s head, opposing the other color with no mercy. When did she age this much? When did this fear and sorrow find time to settle on her face?

A paw of pity stroked across the young woman’s tightly wound nerves:

“Mom. Why don’t you sit down?” She caught herself: All furniture was made of boxes, uncouth for a woman with a living husband, according to her mother’s generation. Before the older woman managed to react, the daughter hid her gaze in forming mounds of soapsuds and hurriedly amended her first offer: “Mom. Wouldn’t you like a drink?”

She turned and walked away again — floating, balancing, looming — stopped by the sliding doors of the balcony, at the edge of the living-room. The palm trees slowly swayed outside like metronomes to one’s slower heartbeat. West, West, West.

She’d gone out West, with nothing but the ghosts checked-in as her luggage. The letters from her best friend on the East Coast would hit the bottom of the mailbox on a weekly basis, for the first two months. She praised her for the courage. She mentioned pride, and dignity, and all the other things they’d mutually gotten high on, back in college.

It never happened in any of the books she’d read, but in her life, what others titled “courage” — was merely an act of following through. Besides, she swore, he thought of the idea first. What else was she suppose to do?

The best friend wrote her with gel pens, whose color was always given careful consideration.

She wrote in pink: “It’s better to let it all go to the wind.”

In purple: “Let justice work itself out.”

At least, unlike the others, the best friend never judged. She wasn’t in a habit of taking sides. She never called the husband names. But then again, they’d never really found men to be the leading topic of their friendship. Men merely existed. Some men were good. And back in college, the two of them hadn’t loved enough men to speak of the other gender with that scornful nostalgia of the other women. Men merely existed. And then: There was the whole of the magnificent world outside.

Out here — out West — she could just start from scratch. She only needed to remember how to breathe the even breath: if not that of her calmer youth — then of her wiser self. With time, she knew she’d see the point of it, the purpose, the lessons of her little losses. She had too vivid of an imagination to not weave her life into a story.

“One’s life had meaning. It couldn’t be for forsaken.” (Oh, how she missed those wonderful convictions of her youth!)

So, while she waited to mature into that wiser self, she set aside some time and space in which the hurting self could flail, abandon graces, wag its finger, then call people back with tearful apologies. But she would not have to confront her past out here, at least; except for when she opened the envelopes of her phone bills.

“So,” mother started speaking to the window, again. “Natasha? Are you looking for a job?”

“I have been looking, yes, mom.”

“Okay,” mom turned around. Change of subject: “I hear Mike got a promotion for doing the work on that new bridge, in Brooklyn.”

When rinsing a knife after all pungent foods, one absolutely must use soap. Because if not, the taste will resonate on every meal for further weeks to come.

“Oh yeah? That’s good.”

“Yeah! He’s a smart boy! I’ve always liked Mike. For you.”

It’s better if the handle of the knife is anything but wooden. Wood stays a living thing forever. It takes on other substances, breeds them, doesn’t let them go.

Here comes the second round. Ding, ding, ding:

“I wrote Mike a letter.” Mom searched for the effects of her intentions on her daughter’s face. “I know! I know! It sounds silly! We live a borough away. But I have always relished his opinion.”

She felt exhausted. “Mom.”

Out West, she’d found herself relearning how to use each thing with an appropriate instrument. The sense of wonderment! The love of unexpected beauty! The curiosity she was resuscitating in herself, like a paralysis patient learning how to walk again. Her days weren’t daunting, at all times; and they were full of curiosity.

And now: Mom, barefoot yet armed! In one woman’s kitchen. So fearful, she could not release either of them from their pasts. They stood, displeased with being a reflection of each other. Another eyebrow arch. A scoff. One turned away, demonstratively disappointed. The other looked down onto her pruned fingers submerged into a sink of cruddy water.

Mom faced the window with no curtains, yet again. Those horrid, flapping, plastic blinds had been the first thing that Natasha’d taken down. For the first weeks, she let the wind roam through the apartment, while she, sleepless and exhausted, observed the palm trees wave against the never pitch-black night of her new city: You are alright. Remember breathing?

Every day, after I hesitantly press the coded “PUBLISH” button on my WordPress’ dashboard, I wait for the website’s quirky exclamations to appear on my screen:

Right on! Bonanza!

Bingo! Superb! Fab!

At least half a year ago, I stopped noting each post’s number; and as of recently, I’ve also lost my addiction to the stats columns. It’s not that I’m indifferent toward my readership, in any way: No sir! I just don’t have any time in the day to check my numbers as religiously as the newbie-blogger me used to do, a mere year ago. So: I just collect the praises.

Besides, even if I have checked the stats, wake me up in the morn’ — and I won’t remember a thing about them. Instead, I could tell you plenty about the remote neighborhoods of LA-LA for whose visit I’ve had to borrow Superman’s cape, so that I would beat the traffic and be on time, along with all the other pros. For a while, in the hours of the next day, I can recall the hustle of the previous one: the projects that I’ve pursued, the people who have delighted me; the coffee shops at which I published in between my commitments; the anxieties, the victories; the tiny defeats and inspirations. But by the end of the week, the memory gives way to the nearest ones — of mostly yesterday.

Awesome!

Truth be told, I don’t even recall what I’ve written just two days ago. Therein must lie the cathartic charm of art: For once the written word leaves my laptop and leaps into the mysterious vortex of the internet, I have already lived it out completely. I’ve let it go, you see, with more grace than I’ve ever practiced in any of my relationships.

And in the entire 351-day history of my blogging, I’ve returned to stories — to rewrite their endings or to keep telling them — in all of five times. I just don’t do that, I guess: Once I hit “PUBLISH”, the story gains a life of its own; and I allow for its destiny to determine where in the world it flies and whom in the world it reaches:

Magical!

Looking back on the year of daily blogging, I myself must admit that I had absolutely no idea as to what this writing adventure would turn out to be. First, there would be the technical challenges of course: Learning the sites, studying the patterns and manners of other bloggers, upgrading my own computer, and eventually narrowing down my art’s topic — while in the process of doing it.

But those, I immediately saw as the perfect excuses to learn: To step out of the fearful pattern of my mind and to submit myself — to change. In the end, as even back then I already knew, it would be rewarding. And I was right: It has been. And it deserves praise.

The personal challenges that came with my now spoken — better yet, written — desire to have a public persona, I could NOT have foreseen. When at first, the opinions of readers and friends began flooding in, I was thrilled. But it wouldn’t be too long before I began hearing criticisms and watching how my friendships started redefining themselves. At first, I geared-up with my anti-hating campaigns and googled other artists opinions on the matter. But then, eventually, the angst ran out.

And it hasn’t been a surprising discovery that I have never complained about having to publish on any given day. What I’ve been practicing — is a privilege to live in art; and the discipline of its pursuit has never gotten in my way.

And speaking of discipline: This year, I have discovered it to be THE grace of all other working artists. Those who succeed the most, work the most (and, therefore, fail the most, too).

And actually, no matter the hustles of each day, discipline indeed turns out to be my saving grace: It gives me a reason to be, despite the failures.

Marvelous!

So, it’s been one challenging year, because its every day I’ve spent creating. And after all that shedding — the mourning, the flailing, the pleading, the lashing out; the learning, the changing; the growth; the acceptance — I am proud to find myself in a place of surrender. Because no matter all other circumstances, I do this — because I must. Because to do anything else — would be dishonest.

And so I allow for the world to happen, while I continue to happen — to it.

The shades were closed. The house was dark. It had always struck me strange the way she’d keep all windows locked down, in order to keep the cold air inside. The manufactured cool would dry out her skin and the house would smell mechanical. She’d complain, blow the arid air through her deviated septum; then slather her age spots with some sort of bleaching cream.

She lived too close to the dessert; and only late at night, she’d give the house fans a rest. Their constant humming would finally die down, and suddenly the sounds of gentle quietness in nature would be overheard through an occasionally open window. The skin of my scalp would relax at the temples: I would forget to notice my constant frown during the 20-hour long humming. My face acquired new habits since living in this house, and I was beginning to forget the girl who had been asked to pay the price of her childhood — in an exchange for the better future.

But on that day, it was too early to allow the nature to come in, yet. And as I entered the empty house, I immediately noticed the hum. I had been gone for half a week: too short of a time to forget the climate of this house entirely — and most definitely not enough to forgive it! I took off my shoes, remembering the stare she’d give her visitors whenever they were too oblivious to obey. Slowly, I began to pass from room to room.

The light gray carpet that covered most of the house’s footage was immaculately clean. And if there was an occasional rug — under a chair or a coffee table — it usually marked an accidental spill of food or drink by a very rare house guest. I’d be the only one who knew that though: I’d witness all their hidden faults. And she would run the vacuum every night, pulling and yanking it in very specific directions. Those vacuum markings had to remain there undisturbed; and only those who didn’t know better were kindly permitted to destroy them with their footsteps.

I opened the bedroom’s double doors first but found no courage to come in. Instead, I stood on the cold titles, on the other side, and studied the footsteps by her bed. There was a cluster of them, right by the nightstand. Is that where she had been picked up by the paramedics? I looked for outlines of boots imprinted into the fur of the carpet. I thought I saw none.

The living room carpet seemed undisturbed. The markings of the vacuum, which she must’ve done the night before, were still perfectly parallel. The cold tiles of the kitchen floor had no residue of food. She’d wash those on her hands and knees with paper towels. And she would go over it until the wet towel would stop turning gray. No dishes in the sink. No evidence of an unfinished meal. No evidence of life at all. I began to wonder where she’d collapsed.

The door to my former bedroom was shut. Most likely, it had remained so since I’d departed. I made it to the office — the only space where some disarray was less prohibited. The bills where broken down by due dates and neatly piled perpendicularly, on top of one another. Her husband had a habit of resting his feet on the edge of the corner desk, as he played on the computer for hours, until she’d fall asleep. Then, he’d come into my bedroom.

My bedroom. Its door was closed. I turned the handle and expected for the usual catch of its bottom against the rug that she insisted on keeping on the other side. Strangely, it covered up no visible spots. I pushed it open.

It was a sight of madness. One woman’s rage had turned the place into a pile of shredded mementos, torn photos and broken tokens of forsaken love. The bedcovers were turned over. The sheets had been peeled off the mattress two-thirds down, as if by someone looking for the evidence of liquids near my sex. The stuffed toys which normally complete my line-up of pillows were now strewn all over the floor, by the wall opposite of my headrest.

On top of an overturned coffee table I saw my letters: My cards to her and hers — to me. She’d even found the letters in my parents’ hand, and she shredded them to piece. Nothing was off limits. No love was sacred after hers had been betrayed.

I stepped inside to see the other side of one torn photograph that flew the closest to the door. At first, I tried to catch my breath. A feeling on sickly heaviness got activated in the intestines. In murder mysteries that she adored to watch with me, I’d seen detectives scurry off into the corner furthest from the evidence, and they would throw up — or choke at least — at the atrocity of crimes against humanity. Apparently, my insides wanted to explode from the other end.

I paced myself. Carefully, that I, too, would not collapse, I bent down and picked up the shredded photo. It was my face, torn up diagonally across the forehead. On the day of my high school graduation, her husband had come over to the side of the fence where we were beginning to line up. I can see the faces of my classmates in the background. They smiling at his lens. They are supposed to, as he — was “supposed” to be my father.

He was not. And I’m not smiling. I’ve raised one eyebrow, and my lips are parted as if I’d just told him to fuck off. Not even there, he would allow for me to be without him. Not even there, I could be alone for long enough to remember the girl who’d been asked for her childhood in an exchange… for what?

I don’t know. How does anybody ever manage to remember the color of these walls?

One of the walls appears missing entirely: Instead it is taken up by a giant window, with a hideous air-conditioning unit directly underneath it. They don’t build windows like that on the East Coast. Everything must be larger in the West: More land, wider roads; bigger closets and endless windows — windows from which we gaze upon the same vast land and highways that carry us along the coast, to and away from love, in a never-ending act of our indecisiveness about solitude.

In Vermont, there are houses with porches and hammocks; and in those houses, the window are unhinged, then flung open, into the idillic streets, best colored during Indian Summer. In Maine, the window panes collect moisture, balancing out the difference between the temperatures with precipitation and moss. In New York, one can always find a jammed window, or a broken one; and often, there is some lever one must work, in order to let in some fresh air.

I’m staring out of the giant hole in the wall, with sliding glass, into the desolate desert landscape with gray domes of industrial buildings and rare traffic. I can see the packed parking lot of the hospital on the ground floor, and judging by the way people leap out of their cars, once they find a spot, I can tell the status of their beloved’s health. The worst cases pull up directly to the curb. Others choose to ride in an ambulance.

I see the disheveled head of a woman clutching a baby blanket being helped out of the red swinging doors. She is being lifted by two men in uniforms; and once on the ground, one of them must remind her how to walk.

I look away: Dear God! I think I’m starting to run out of prayers.

On the horizon — gray mountains. They are always gray, on this side, and only in the deepest winter do their peaks adopt a different shade: of stark-white snow. I think of the East, again. The mountains aren’t mountains out there: They’re hills.

Everything must be larger, in the West. And I’m one of those travelers, speeding along its wider roads, in a never-ending act of my indecisiveness about solitude: chasing, then running away from love — then, coming back for more.

The beep-beep-beep of the life-support machine brings me back into the room. I am alone here. Well, no: She is here too. But I’m not sure if her Here is in the same vicinity as mine. The doctors have managed to bring her back from wherever that is a broken heart takes its victims: They have struggled to bring her back Here, through a series of shots and shocks and tricks of the trade.

So, now she is back Here; but I know her Here — is nowhere near. It’s a different space entirely — a different Here where I, despite my conflicts with love, do not yet wish to be.

The doctors have spoken of Hope.

“Here is still some,” they say; and because they don’t avert their eyes, I wonder how many times they’ve had to say this — just today.

And how are they going to say it again to the disheveled mother who’s forgotten how to walk?

I come up to her bed. Her skin is ashen. I’ve never seen this color on the living before: It’s yellowish-blue, sickly and wax-like. It juxtaposes against all other shades with defeated sadness. So, the fuchsia pink of her pedicured toenails peaking out from under the sheet loses all vividness. The acrylic nails on her fingers, of the same shade, now have an appearance of props.

I remember she used to snap them against each other, when laughing herself to tears while telling a joke. She was good at jokes. And in my memory, that hollow sound of snapping nails has come to mean her good moods.

The beep-beep-beep of the life-support machine brings me back into the room: Again! It reminds me of the rhythm her broken heart is forced to take on, in order to stay Here. Is this — the sound of Hope? This slow, mathematically precise beat of an intelligent machine that, despite its act of mercy, does not possess the sensitivity to understand?

Her body has left this Here: The Here of the Living! She doesn’t want to be Here, anymore! And it is a terrible thought; and I cannot bring myself to say it out loud, in front the drooping face of her mourning husband.

I stand by her bed and study her face. It’s not peaceful, as my useless novels have promised. She looks perplexed, and I find myself fixated on the faded outline of her lipstick. I want to wipe it off for her: She would have wanted dignity, while — and if — she is still Here. She is a woman with no heartbeat but perfectly manicured nails. I think of paging the nurse.

The tubes, running to and from her wrists, fascinate me with their width. I follow them with their eyes, up to the beep-beep-beep of the life-support machine. I study the monitor.

What was I looking for?

I return to her face, looking for answers. A tiny tear, that has formed at an outer corner of her right eye, begins crawling across her temple.

You are still thinking of that person who has mishandled you, who has mistreated, misunderstood it all — someone who has committed a sad misstep. But, of course, you think of him! How could he?!

But time happens. It keeps on happening. That just can’t be helped.

And as the time happens, his misstep seems sadder and sadder. But it’s rarely tragic, really — if you look at it hard enough. It may be chaotic, self-serving, unfair. Foolish and hideous. Confusing. Unkind.

But in the end, it’s just sadder. Especially if you commit yourself — to forgiveness.

For a while, his face floats above your head like a helium filled balloon, tied to the shoulder strap of your luggage. And you lug it around: Because these — are your “things”, you see. And you feel like you’ve gotta keep holding onto them. You’ve gotta keep holding on! Because what would you be — if it weren’t for your “things”?

So, the balloon keeps following you, floating above — a strangely pretty thing: The head of a decapitated ghost. If you look at it closely enough — it’s quite beautiful, actually, in that post-fuck-up sort of a way. You can still see the beloved’s face. You remember the cause of your love. But there is also a tiredness there that can be confused for peace. And there are consequences that may result in grace, eventually — when the time allows.

You just gotta commit yourself to time.

You just gotta commit yourself — to forgiveness.

But you aren’t ready yet. Or so you say. So you keep lugging the luggage around, earning calluses on your shoulders:

“These are my ‘things’, you see!”

“Oh, yes! How could he?!” others respond.

At first, you are selective with the audience to your story. Perhaps, you’ll tell it to your shrink, or to your folks. When you do, there will be grief written on their faces.

Okay, maybe the shrink will remain stoic: She’s got too many of you’s — and many more are worse off than you. But your folks: They might humor you. They’ll feel badly. They’ll behold. They’ll even claim to pray, on your behalf. (You’re too busy to pray for yourself, with all that condemnation being flaunted at the balloon-face. But don’t worry: Your gods will forgive you for forsaking them (and for forsaking your better self), until you’re ready to commit yourself — to forgiveness.)

“How could he?!” your folks will say.

And it’ll feel good, for a while: all this attention to your story. To your “things”. So, you’ll start telling the story to your friends.

They are good people — your friends, aren’t they? They will leap to conclusions and advice. They’ll take your side, if their definition of friendship matches yours. But some will judge. Others will hold back. And some will even want to share their story, because to them, that’s how empathy works: It gives space — to their sadder, sadder stories that aren’t really tragic. Except, when you (or they) are in the midst of the story, tragedy is a lot more precise. It matches the weight of the “things”.

You may get annoyed at your friends. You may disagree. You may even demand more kindness. Or more time.

Because time — keeps on happening. That just can’t be helped.

And you wish, it would move at a slower pace, sometimes.

And, okay, you just may get a little bit more of it, if you keep retelling your story to enough new people.

“How could he?!” they’ll say.

And you’ll get off, for a bit. (Feel better yet?)

One day, though, you’ll catch yourself in the midst of sadness. You’ll be showing your “things”, the way you always do, waiting for the “How could he?!” to follow. Your habitual anticipation of likely reactions will suddenly feel tired. You — will be tired.

A thought will flash:

“I don’t know if I wanna keep lugging this ‘thing’ around, anymore…”

His face — still floating, hanging above your head like something that used to belong to your favorite ghost — will seem slightly deflated. Sadder — NOT tragic.

Still, you will keep lugging. For a bit more, you will. You still need more time.

You’ve started this thing, and the ripple waves of gossip and misinterpreted empathies will keep coming in, for a bit longer. But they won’t bring you any more catharsis. And as you keep retelling the story (which will now sound a lot more fragmented), you’ll notice your people lingering:

“Isn’t it time yet?” they’ll ask you with the corners of their saddened eyes.

It had been with me for over three years, and by now I was getting texts and phone calls from the Verizon people on a regular basis, begging me to get an upgrade.

“Did you know you were eligible for a $50 rebate?!” some nice girl would be trying to tell me after I would call to complain about the most recent malfunction on my device:

“The flip is not clicking anymore,” I’d say. “I think it’s loose.”

“Well, m’am,” the nice girl would be studying my files on her screen. She seemed to be patient, and yes, super nice. Perhaps, in those files, she could read all the records of my previous love affairs, from start to finish; and she would take pity on me. And even if she couldn’t see my love stories unfold through a progression of texts between my exes and I, I bet she could tell I was going through another break-up by the gastronomical size of my bill that month.

And sometimes, I would imagine she had some sort of a hidden camera thingy connected to the flimsy flip in my hand, and she could actually see all the terrible truths about my life.

“Hmm. It says here you’d drowned your phone in a cup of coffee nearly a year ago.”

(See! I told you she had that hidden camera thingy!)

But yes, it is true about the coffee. You see, about a year ago, I had finally decided my motha and I were ready to cross the next boundary in our relationship — and that we could try texting each other.

Now, I am not one of those absentee daughters. I call my motha on a regular basis, one-to-two weekend nights per week. Even if we feel like we have nothing to say to each other, I would much rather hear motha’s repeated monologues on the other end of my cellphone — than suffer the passive-aggressive silence after I had somehow forgotten to call her one weekend. Because let me tell you: Jewish mothers have NOTHING on my motha with their guilt trips. My motha copyrighted that shit! And she is not really the silent type, neither in Russian nor English. So, when she does go quiet on you, she can raise the hairs on the back of your neck with feelings of her orphan-like abandonment and saintly martyrdom.

Anyway. At the end of last summer, we had passed a new threshold: For the first time in our lives, we each had our own place with which we were finally perfectly content. There would be no more terrible roommates. No more partners with messy habits. And we had vowed that each would stay at her place for at least a couple of years.

Conveniently, my motha’s joint had horrendous cellphone reception. So, before she got herself a landline, I would have to text — to test her availability.

“CALL NOW” — motha would respond, often with no punctuation marks and in all caps.

But my very first text to motha was actually less than technical.

“Lov U, shawty,” I wrote.

I was feeling mushy that morning. It’s a consequence of having a heart that’s easily prone to gratitude. Motha would understand that: I am sure I’ve inherited that damn thing from her. And so:

“Lov U, shawty,” I composed. But right before I could hit the red button of SEND, the flip phone slipped out of my hand and dove right into the middle of my morning cup of coffee with a precision of a kamikaze.

“SHIT” — I thought (with no punctuation marks and in all caps). “My coffee is ruined.”

As I said: I had just moved into the place, and before I had unpacked my kitchen supplies, I had walked to the 7-Eleven on the corner to get my caffeine fix for the day.

The flip phone was retrieved eventually and immediately buried in a jar of rice. It wasn’t white rice, but one of those healthy wild rice mixtures from Trader Joe’s. So, the trick wouldn’t work, and I would go through the hassle of filing an insurance claim and waiting for some hideous device to arrive in the mail. My old flip phone would eventually be revived with the help of a hairdryer, and I would feel like my faithful device and I had passed another hurdle in life. We were veterans. Survivors. And we weren’t ready to part ways yet.

Because one of the terrible truths in my life was that, just like everyone else, I was married to my cellphone. It was the most significant relationship in my life — and an appendix to my ego. And even though every once in a while (like after a break-up, for instance) I would lock that thing up in my car for a day to punish it — to punish the whatever him I was breaking-up with — I couldn’t live without it.

And there had been moments when I would fling the poor thing across the room after a prolonged wait for a Time Warner rep to pick-up my call. I had used it to break-up with my old bank from the East Coast, utterly useless on this side of the country. Because my cellphone was perfect for confrontations; and I think it had something to do with the flip feature of it. It added a certain umph to my endings, like a punctuation mark at the end of a text message.

But about a week ago, I could tell: My poor thing — my dear veteran — was on its very last stretch. It was no longer responding to its charger, and seemingly its screen was starting to suffer from some sort of electronic epilepsy. Two days ago, it was over.

Finally, that poor thing!

“NO CHARGER DETECTED” — the screen said (with no punctuation marks and in all caps).

And then: It went dark.

Strangely, despite all of our history, I didn’t feel any sadness about its departure. It is true we had passed through many hurdles together. We were veterans. Survivors.

But I knew: Ah, it was time.

“How can I help you?” some nice boy with an iPhone clipped onto his belt said to me when I stormed into the Verizon store last night.

“Well,” I said, whipped out the dead body of my cellphone and slammed it against the counter. “You tell me!”

The nice boy smiled: He couldn’t help it.

“Ow… Ouch. What happened to its gloss?” he said, ever so charitably.

And I remembered the very first day I bought my baby at another store: It was caramel-colored and shiny, and it would light up with red lights when I caressed its surface. The gloss was long gone now, and I would begin to be slightly embarrassed to take it out in public.

The kind boy was by now studying my files on his screen. Could he see all of the terrible truths about my life? Could he read the histories of my relationships in the gastronomical sizes of my previous bills? And considering the low amount due this month, could he tell I had been finally single — and contently so — for the duration of the last season?

“Did you know you were eligible for a $150 rebate?”

“That bad, eh?” I said and smiled. I couldn’t help it.

“IT’S TIME” — the nice boy said (with no punctuation marks and in all caps).

And when he asked me if I wanted to save any of my old text messages or voicemails — for I would be losing ALL of them in this transition — I did not feel any sadness at all.

“You think? You forgive because if you don’t — you are the only one you harm. Right?”

I put the book of Mexican recipes face down onto my chest. Think about. I can’t be flippant when speaking of forgiveness:

“Something like that.”

That still sounded flippant. I amend:

“I forgive because otherwise it’s too heavy. It becomes spite, or even hatred.”

I actually think I am allergic to both. This last time around, I wore a rash on my chin until it stopped mattering, I guess.

I continue:

“And I forgive because I am still looking for new stories. When there is no forgiveness, I just keep replaying the old one too much. Until I get sick of it. Until it stops mattering, I guess.”

Until I get sick of it. Is that what happens with me, eventually: I dig for reasons, I cross-examine for long enough to get sick of the whole story? Because most of the time, the reasons don’t become apparent. Not completely. There are glimpses, of course; and most of them are rooted in some sort of pleasure — or satisfaction at least — on the part of the other.

The people who wrong us seek something that they think they deserve. They deserve us: our goodness, our sex, our beauty.

And some would call that love.

“What would you call it?” he asks me. He is lying on his side, facing the wall, away from me. The wall is baby blue.

“I dunno,” I say, pick up the book with the Mexican recipes and start flipping through it again: I am done figuring it out! “I dunno! But I definitely don’t call it ‘love’!”

The pictures in the book are delicious. Delectable. I secretly daydream of my future bakery: It would be so good for my soul!

“Love ought to be selfless,” I resume. I guess I am not done figuring it out. “I love for the sake — for the benefit — of the other person, as much as I do for my own.”

“That’s not true!” he says and finally rolls over onto his back to look at me. “I’ve seen you love, love. You often love — despite yourself.”

I want to laugh but feel slightly defensive: “Well. That’s just what I do!”

I get a mighty hold of the book jacket and start skipping the section on meats: I don’t want to know!

He is waiting for the rustle of the flipping pages to stop. “That’s what you do alright. But that’s not good either. You can’t keep sacrificing yourself like that.”

I still want to laugh.

“At least, at the end, I needn’t be forgiven,” I say.

I’ve found some great comfort in that, before. Even pride. Because when I leave, I don’t take much with me. I don’t take away a former love’s dignity. I don’t destroy the self-esteem. And I only carry away the things that have always belonged to me.

So, no: I don’t take much with me. And I don’t take away much either. But the weight of trying to forgive — is quite heavy, and I choose to lug it with me for a while. Until it stops mattering, I guess.

I dig. I cross-examine. I recycle. I search for the reasons until I realize that the reasons may never become fully apparent. There are glimpses, of course. But the consolation they offer aren’t strong enough of a painkiller. So, I continue to dig, thinking that if only I find all the reasons — it will stop hurting completely.

“But how much of yourself do you leave behind?” He is now staring at the ceiling. It’s white.

I stop flipping the pages, put down the book face down onto my chest and start staring at his spot as well. (Are those fingerprints on the ceiling?)

I may leave. I may take the things that have always belonged to me. But when I keep the connection — just so that I can continue cross-examining, digging — I linger. And in lingering, I leave parts of me behind.

How do we forgive the people who have wronged us?

I am afraid that my previous “how” — is just a theory, and with time I’ve learned that it doesn’t really work. I never find the complete reasons: I only find reaffirmations of the others’ previous choice to wrong me. The original choice to deserve: my goodness, my sex, my beauty. My generosity. My love.

And then, there is this forgiveness:

“Time,” he says. “You give it time.” He is still staring at the ceiling.

“Kinda like putting it to rest? long before it’s ready?” I am studying his spot: Fingerprints.

If I put it to rest, the story won’t stop mattering. Instead, it will remain as a tale of Just Because. And I have to have enough patience — enough self-love — to leave it at that.

Because there are glimpses of reasons, of course; but not even the most powerful empathy can make me understand these reasons completely. So, I should just let them be theoretical. Otherwise, it’s too heavy. And I only harm myself.

And after enough time, the reasons stop mattering completely.

I let it be — I let them be — in time and silence.

And I let myself be light and kind, as someone who needn’t be forgiven.

“You jump to conclusions too fast,” my father would have said had I told him this story. “Too trusting — that’s your problem.”

Dad is fearful, especially as a parent; and I can’t really judge the guy for that. History has played a hideous prank on his country and his life, and it continues treating him and his people as dispensable. Surely, there cannot be a bigger heartbreak than that. There cannot be a bigger absurdity. And I can’t really blame the poor guy caught in the midst of a Kafka play.

So, I forgive him for his limitations, his shortcomings, his imposing fearfulness. Instead, I stretch the boundaries of my unconditional love — of my compassion — and I choose to think of him as a good man.

My father — is a good, good man.

But I would never tell him this story:

I was studying the face of a good man the other night. I barely knew him, but not once had I wondered whether he had made his share of mistakes in life, his share of missteps. I suppose I was certain he had. But they mattered little in that moment.

Because I chose to think of him as a good, good man.

(I AM too trusting — that’s my problem.)

And I listened.

He spoke to me of his travels, of leaving his doubts, vanity and fears behind; and biking across the country with nothing but a backpack and a camera.

He told me about the perseverance of the body if only one could control the mind. In survival, he said, there was a chronic juxtaposition of reflexes versus fragility. And when confronting the most basic needs, there was a balance and a great humility.

And there was beauty in the defeat of despair with one’s courage, in the elation of that success; and in the overall simplicity of living.

“What a good man!” I thought. “What a good, good man!”

The road threw him for a loop a number of times, but he told me about the clarity of the mind if one was traveling light.

“It’s a good thing I hit the road without any expectations,” he told me.

It made sense.

He spoke about having no possessions to weight down his choices and no expectations. Neither were there any grudges or resentments against humanity — others’ or his own. His journey was not a conquest: Not a thing dictated by the ego.So, he traveled with a lesser emotional baggage, as someone who knew the power of forgiveness all too well.

His only responsibility on the road — was his family. He would have been a lot more reckless, it seemed, had it not been for the nightly on-line messages that he promised to send their way. And so he would. No matter the difficulties of the day, no matter the survivals and the defeats, the despair and the courage, he would telegraph his experiences home. And these letters — his road journals, the confessions of a transcendent mind — were the only threads leading back to the people he loved.

The humble badass smiled at me as if he could read the answer on my face — my good, good face — and he said:

“Because the one thing I know — is that I cannot stop knowing.”

And so, I was studying the face of a good man the other night; and it made me think of life as a sequence of choices.

My life — was not the life of my father: I had bigger control over my circumstances; enough control to allow myself the occasional hubris of assuming that I was a person of consequence. I could make choices, you see. Unlike my father — my good, good father — I could choose my situations, or even change them. And I had the luxury of freedom: to pursue my life’s ambitions and to continue “knowing”; to continue learning.

Somehow, I had made the choice — to be good, in life. There had been plenty of situations that tested my ethics before. Yet even in defeat, in shame, in pain, I could always return to the track of goodness. I could always see my way back to redemption. Because even though my life was not my father’s, my ethics — were indeed his.

And my father — was always a good, good man.

And so, I was studying the face of a good, good man the other night; and it made me think of life as a sequence of choices.

“But I just can’t forgive myself,” my father had confessed a number of times. “That’s my problem.”

Alas: That was the main difference between my father’s character and my own. I always chose to travel lightly, as someone who knew the power of forgiveness all too well. I chose to have the power of self-forgiveness. And I could always see my way back to redemption.

This shirt, right here — I’ve worn it no more than a couple times. So, why am I holding onto it?

Why am I holding on?

It was a gift by a New York girlfriend. She is married by now, and a mother. The last time we saw each other was on the West Coast, after my divorce, when she came to see her father to tell him she was engaged. That was the day I got the shirt. It was Christmastime. My car would break down on the way back to LA-LA, and I would call my ex, in panic. He would answer…

Why am I holding onto this shirt?

Why am I holding on?

I’m going to give it away. That’s it! That feels right: Perhaps, I’ll just give it to the young girl who reminds me of my former self — the one prior to the divorce. That’s it. Give it away. That feels right. Give it away.

And this sweater: How long have I had this sweater? Let me think. About twenty years?

Twenty years?!

Who in the world holds onto sweaters — for twenty years?!

Someone who is in charge of her own keepsakes and who makes up her memories, as she goes along; because there is no one else to ask for a cross-reference.

Someone who has no home and no homeland to revisit because neither exists any longer.

Someone who has spent her childhood on the road, and her womanhood — in a whole different foreign land.

Come to think of it, that’s a quirky split. When I try to remember myself as a child, I catch myself thinking in my native language: My former language, of my former self. But the language of my womanhood — is my second. But it is also the language of my love — the language of all my loves — with which I’ve learned to communicate, to hold on and to let go.

“But V makes up her own language,” my last love once told me.

Forever, I am a foreign child but an American woman. Which one is the most organic, the most relevant self? Which one do I keep on the forefront the most? This split is hard to interpret into either language for others trying to comprehend me. But then, no story of immigration is a simple one. So, I barely even try anymore.

And this sweater: I think I used to run in this sweater, as a child. And I still do. All the threads in its seams have now lost their original shade, so it is slightly embarrassing to wear this thing out in public. But I still run in it. I run fast enough to camouflage its faults. My faults.

Perhaps, I’ll just keep it: This sweater — is the only thing of my childhood that I have left to hold onto.

Here is a couple of white nightgowns. I don’t even wear nightgowns, so why do I own them?

Why am I holding onto them?

Why am I holding on?

This one: It’s from Eastern Germany. I remember it was given to me by my motha after I refused to wear my training bra.

“When you’re older, your underwear gets prettier,” she promised in my native language, when I was still thinking in that language, too.

But at the time, I was breathless: Mama (or “motha” as I call her here, on the foreign land) used to be a stunning woman. Her face was bewitching to men: To them, it promised adventures no other mortal woman was able to provide before. Because it took them into the very depths of their souls — the depths so terrifying, the two choices they had at the end of the affair were: to pull out or to hang on for their lives. Either way, they never came out of it the same. (And I would know: Quite a few have pulled themselves out of their souls, in front of me. What an adventure!)

But at the time, I was breathless: utterly bewitched by my motha’s face; in love with her, for the rest of my days. And that nightgown would stay stored inside a drawer when I left home. Motha had to mail it to me, for keepsakes, as an American woman.

The other nightgown is vintage. I bought it in Ventura, years after my divorce. It’s satin, with two shades of handmade lace. One of the straps is broken. Broken by a lover’s hand. He, too, pulled himself out.

So, why am I holding on?

Well, I can’t really give these to another woman — or to the young girl who reminds me of my former self. It’s bad enough our beds have memories. Freud said we sleep with our former lovers for the rest of our lives. We carry them. We hold on.

But with every woman, there are also memories stored in the drawer with her lingerie.

Perhaps, I’ll just throw them out. Discard them.

Let them go.

With every move, with every relocation, I am a different woman: a lighter one, it seems. Every time, I pack up my possessions, I discard at least a half, as if making room for fresh memories, fresh stories. New loves. New selves.

Forever, I am in charge of my own keepsakes. But with time, I seem to need less of them.